


words are futile devices

by twitchytweek



Series: Tweek Week 2019 [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff, Gen, JUST GUYS BEIN DUDES, M/M, being low-key in love, but don't worry you don't need to know the au to understand the content, but isn't that just the gay experience, helping each other through emotional issues, this is based around an au of mine, this is definitely more friendshippy than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitchytweek/pseuds/twitchytweek
Summary: For a long time, Tweek had been content in his own little sphere of the web, playing music not because he wanted attention for it— though it was nice— but because he liked creating. It felt nice to be able to do something and see an immediate effect; pluck a string and hear sound, plunk a few keys and there were chords, rhythm. All his excess energy was able to escape him so easily like that, even playing idly, even playing songs a hundred other people had played in a hundred different ways. All the details came naturally to him, too, and he'd never forget how proud he was when his calluses first formed. His hands were rough, now, and worn, and deft. And very rarely idle.It was nice. Creating something out of what his destructive brain fed him was a high like nothing any drug had ever given him. He liked the texture of metal strings on guitars and bass, the light weight to drumsticks, the smooth unassuming ivory of pianos. Relearning how to use his voice was nice, too, and frustrating in equal parts. He liked that it never completely lost the cracks and crackles. He liked how he could turn it into something other people appreciated.But Tweek had never been good at writing.





	words are futile devices

**Author's Note:**

> YEET it's Tweek Week!!! I didn't have as much time with the prompts as i wanted, so all of these are going to be pretty short. probably. unless I get carried away. this is for a Very Beloved AU of mine, and it was a lot of fun writing for it!! hope y'all enjoy, feel free to tell about any thoughts or questions you have!

Try as he might, Tweek had never been good at writing.

He was good at creating— that wasn't the issue. Creative energy flowed from him naturally, he wanted to _make_ things, do things, see a real lasting effect on his environment that could be linked back to him. He liked to think it was a talent of his; he picked up on music like he was made for it despite never having a lesson in his life, unless school band counted, and he didn't know anything about music theory, or how to read it, or how to construct a song from the ground up. But he was excellent at dismantling someone else's song and piecing it back together. When he was relaxed and not thinking and blissed-out, everything came so easily. Focusing was a pain. Sitting back and letting all that hyperactive energy run wild was natural.

He couldn't do it while he was thinking of doing it, though. Trying to relax was a paradox in of itself, even on the rare days that he didn't feel particularly stressed or otherwise out of sorts. This was the sort of thing he had to lean back and let happen when it decided to.

That… didn't exactly work with Craig's method of doing things.

Which, really, was Craig's fault. They'd worked together long enough he should have realized that Tweek couldn't just sit down and _do_ things. Once he got started, it was easy— it was the beginning and end that tripped him up.

But Craig liked schedules and order and predictability. And he _insisted_ on Tweek learning how to write his own songs.

Tweek leaned back on the bars of the little merry-go-round he'd been perching on, his notebook falling somewhere into the dirt below. Craig frowned at him and he reflected the expression back. "This is boring. Can we go?"

"Depends." Tweek already didn't like his response. "Have you written anything yet?"

There were a myriad of curses Tweek wanted to say. Instead he huffed out a little aggravated breath and mumbled something resembling "No." His nail caught on the old paint of the playground equipment and he tried to pick it off more. "I'm working on it. It would help if I had a tune, or a rhythm. _Something_." 

"You have to figure that out for yourself," Craig graciously informed him, and Tweek slammed the pen down onto the metal, the force vibrating the metal beneath. 

"Asshole! I'm trying, it's just—"

"I know." Tweek pouted indignantly, and Craig continued. "There's no pressure, you know. You're too damn wound up."

"It's hard _not_ to be," Tweek mourned. "You're just so good at this shit, and I'm... not." And Craig's frown deepened, and Tweek felt even more useless for not being able to do what he needed to on command. A chunk of paint stabbed into the skin beneath his nail and he yelped. "God fucking— why is this so _hard_?"

Craig said, "Because you're thinking too much." Climbed up beside him, notebook in hand, and ran his index finger along all the little doodles Tweek had done instead of writing. He should have known Craig would catch on that he was drawing instead of writing. "What are you thinking about?"

"How bullshit all of this is," Tweek stubbornly said. Some of those hasty doodles actually came out nice; he was especially proud of the face full of eyes. "How much better you are at this— how I'm only wasting your time. I could have learned a new song by now, or finished editing what I already recorded, and instead it's just… I'm. _Here_. Thinking myself into a corner."

Craig dragged his thumb over his knuckles as he spoke; funny, he didn't notice Craig's hand resting on his own until now. "You're thinking of this as a competition."

Well, that was obvious. "Correct. And I have to win." 

"Do you?" What the hell kind of question was that? Of course he did. But the words froze in his throat and he couldn't say anything. He slouched further, and Craig tapped his wrist. On instinct his head raised again. "It's okay if you're bad right now. Fuck, do you think I was good at this right away?" Tweek opened his mouth to speak— _of course, of course, you had to have been—_ and Craig spoke over him before he could say a word. "I wasn't. But I had to learn. Do you know why I write songs?"

"Because you're good at it?" Tweek offered.

"Because I'm bad at everything else," corrected Craig. "I'm not good at talking to people, or expressing emotions—"

"No shit," Tweek scoffed.

"I'm not good at _saying_ these things." He gestured to the notebook. "Writing them out was the only way I could get anything across. You remember how you told me that trying to talk to me was like learning a new language?"

"Mh?"

"You were right. A lot of people think I'm a giant asshole, and I don't always mind that anymore, most people are pretty annoying. But." Craig paused, his brows knitting together. Tweek knew that expression from all the times he'd scrunched his face up in the same way, searching for the words to fit his thoughts. "I haven't always been good at showing that I care. It's hard, and a lot of times I don't really care about much. Writing it out gave me time to think about what I wanted to say, and if I got stuck on something I could just let it out and I'd understand it better."

"Makes sense," Tweek said thoughtfully. 

"Does it?" Craig chuckled, and Tweek laced their hands together. "Talking to you is like learning another language, too. So is writing. But the only way to get good at it is to start."

"I don't know _how_ though," Tweek insisted. 

"How about this, then," Craig started, standing up and stretching. He almost lost his balance when the merry-go-round started moving, and Tweek leaned up to catch him. He didn't need to. But it was nice thinking he might have. "You can finish one of the songs in my book that I never completed. They're not the best, but it might give you a good jumping-off point."

"You'd really be okay with that? What if I ruin it?" Craig was already retrieving his journal, thumbing through the pages as he sat down again— much more carefully this time, without bars between them. Somehow, having him that close made Tweek's mind sputter to a stop, an old car with a broken engine taking the place of a proper train of thought.

"You won't. Here." Craig held out his journal, open to a page with only a few neat lines scrawled out. There weren't doodles in the margins, or notes, it was plain and clean. Like Craig. "Tell me what this is about."

Tweek took a second to read over the lyrics, trying to fit them to a tune. When that proved to get in his way, he read the words as they were written, puzzling out what he could relate them too. It was strangely fun, comparing what Craig might have been thinking when writing to how he interpreted and related to it. "Existential dread?" He tried with a laugh. "Uh, no, I think… It's about feeling lonely and guarded off. A sort of self-made isolation."

Craig hummed. His fingers were curled into the tassles at the end of his hat. "Is that what it means to you?"

"I.. guess so? What kind of a question is that?" 

"Write about what it means to _you_," Craig answered. 

Without a tune to follow, he did his best to match the syllables instead. Thought about what that kind of loneliness must feel like, what it could do to someone. The self-doubt and self-blame that he wished he couldn't relate to. There were specific scenes stuck in his head and while he couldn't remember the details, he know how they made him feel. And for once, the puzzling metaphors his father always spoke to him in helped him to say a lot without revealing much at all. After every verse the chorus changed a bit, less mournful, more angry. He hit a wall once he got to the bridge, and realized he'd been completely lost in his own head.

"Better?" Craig prompted with a smug little smile. Tweek passed him the notebook.

"You tell me."

It took Craig much less time to read over it, judging by how fast his eyes scanned the page. And then they darted back up, a couple times after that. "Better," he affirmed after a bit. "_Much_ better. This is pretty solid stuff, Tweek." Unsure whether it was the use of his name or the kindness that made his skin run hot, Tweek squirmed under the look Craig gave him. "I like that you added a post-chorus here, and the little ways you changed things around are really effective. The way it gets more and more abstract is cool, too."

"I didn't mean to do that," Tweek said.

"That doesn't matter right now. You did _good_ Tweek. And— doesn't writing it out make you feel a little better?"

Tweek thought on that a minute. All his internalized issues, the things he didn't want to admit to feeling. Even tiptoeing around them made him feel naked and vulnerable. But… yeah. It _was_ nice doing something about it. "It does," he agreed. 

"Good," Craig said, nodding. Tweek listed into his side briefly. "Do you wanna keep going? I have some ideas for the bridge here."

Tweek beamed back up at him. "I'd love to."


End file.
